Another Childhood Milestone Reached

Yesterday, for the first time ever, Cheyenne rode her bike without training wheels !

I'm so proud of her :)

We were beginning to wonder if she'd ever find the confidence.

She used to ride her bike a lot, and last year we decided she seemed ready for Operation Training Wheels Removal. So we did... and she wasn't. She flat out refused to pedal. Wouldn't even try. So we caved in and put them back on. Since then, she has not really been interested in riding her own bike, opting instead for trips on the Tag Along, behind Daddy's bike.

We frequently see little kids, 3 or 4 years of age, riding (without training wheels) beside their parents on the way to pick up their older brothers or sisters from school. "If they can do it, you can do it too", I'd say to Cheyenne. "No I can't. I'll fall off." Now, I have terrible balance and I know I was a lot older by the time I finally learnt to ride a bike, so I wasn't going to push her into it if she truly wasn't ready. Steve, however, felt that as she is already 7 it was high time the training wheels came off for good.

On Saturday he went out and bought a kick stand to suit her bike (along with a new inner tube for the back tyre) and removed the training wheels. Yesterday she had a few reluctant practice runs on the grassy footpath outside Nanny's, then after lunch we hit the local bike track. We figured it would be perfect as it is nice and flat and not particularly busy (it's more of a dead-ended scenic track rather than a commuter route).

After numerous minor stacks (mostly caused by her looking round to check that Steve was still holding the back of the seat, therefore throwing her off balance) she had mentally given up and was whinging that she just couldn't do it, but we weren't going to let her off that easily. We told her she had to ride all the way to the end before she got to turn back. At least she got to ride. Both Steve and I were running along either side of her! NOT my favourite thing to do in this heat!

The return leg was where her confidence kicked in. After one wobbly stop, Steve revealed to her that she'd just ridden about 30 metres all by herself, without him holding the seat, and she realised she could do it after all. After that, the few times she came off she picked the bike up and got straight back on without hesitating. She was even remembering to use her brakes to stop. By the time we got back to the car, she was still a bit wobbly, but the only time Steve was holding on to her was to help her start off. She'll get the hang of that with a bit more practice.

Now that she has the confidence in herself she'll be keen to practice, so next time I'll be taking the camera. I'm sure it won't be long before she's able to keep up with us and we can all go riding together.

Happy (Belated) New Year

Well, it's 2011 already! I'm sorry it has been so long between posts.

My New Year's Resolution was to keep my blog updated more often. Clearly, not going so well with that, as it's almost the end of January already and this is my first post of the year. Hmmm...

Not that it's really any excuse, but the last part of the year always seems to get rather hectic, so naturally a blog falls by the wayside. Surely though, I must have had something to write about in the last 6 months?

Let's see... Cheyenne turned 7 last September, then in October I turned 37 and Steve turned 39. Then we had the end of grade 1 for Cheyenne and Christmas holidays, and rain, rain and MORE rain.

We had a very soggy and muddy week away at Borumba Deer Park between Boxing Day and New Year. What should have been a pleasant week of fishing, swimming, watersports and trips in the boat became a week of squelching about in stinky mud, daily checking the waterlevel of the flooded creek against the powerpole on the lower campgrounds, and playing about on forestry roads. All because we were trapped between two flooded creek crossings and couldn't get up to the dam or back into town for fresh supplies. Did I mention NO SHOWERS ? That's right. As the creek was flooded, the pump had to be removed for safety, so the limited supply of tankwater had to be used for flushing the toilets, rather than on showers. Still, there was copious amounts of rainwater to be collected from our tarp, so no shortage of water for bucket washing, lol. When the floodwater receded, the bridges had been damaged, but at least we could get home.

Of course, that was still an adventure, compared to the flood devastation throughout the rest of the state. Emerald, Rockhampton, Bundaberg, Chinchilla, Condamine and so many other areas in between. Then Toowoomba, the Lockyer Valley, Ipswich and Brisbane had their turn, before the floodwaters headed south into northern NSW. Now Victoria is also in the grip of flooding. So much devastation and it isn't the end of the wet season yet.

Today is Cheyenne's first day back at school for 2011. New teacher, new classroom block, a mix of old and new classmates and lots of new things to learn. I'm hoping she will enjoy grade 2 as much as the two previous years. I promise to keep you posted.

Rainbow Dreams

I can't believe it has been a whole month since we were on holiday at Rainbow Beach. We have been going there for the last week in July every year for years now, for the Rainbow Beach Fishing Competition.

The beach? In Winter? Ah yes, gotta love the Queensland climate :)

This year will have to be the last for Cheyenne and I, as she really shouldn't be missing out on a week and a half of school. They don't seem to be really learning all that much in Grade 1 and we did take schoolwork with us, so it wasn't as scandalous as it sounds.

While the "boys" (Steve, his Dad and a couple of mates) fished and won some daily prizes, it was all about the beach holiday for Cheyenne, Steve's Mum and I. Cheyenne really is a little beach bum.

It's a shame we had to come home.

If I won lotto, the first thing I'd do would be to buy a holiday house there.

Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows

... marshmallow socks, that is, LOL.

The chill of Winter is in the air, and that means it's time to drink hot chocolate and break out the bed socks.

All my life I've been cursed with bad circulation, so that means my hands and feet are usually like blocks of ice during the colder months of the year. When I'm lounging around the house, watching TV or headed for bed, I have my marshmallow socks. As you can see, I have a few pairs. OK, more than a few. I'll admit it - I may be obsessed with them. The aqua ones with the non-slip flowers on the sole were bought to match my paisley PJs, and the black, pink and white ones match my Pink Ribbon PJs (and they came in a 2 pack with the hot pink ones). The brown leopardy print ones were just too pretty and snugly to be left on the shelf in the shop.

Actually, that seems to be my downfall. I'm a tactile sock shopper. I don't obviously need another pair, but you can bet I'll see some in a colour I don't have, and once I touch them, I'm done for. Oh, they're so soft, so snugly, and pretty. I'll get them.

I've also recently bought a set of micro polar fleece sheets for our bed. Yes, you heard correctly. Not flannelette. Polar fleece. Sounds a bit odd, but they are to die for snugly, soft and warm, and I'm so glad I got them. Steve, however, is not so impressed. He reckons the pillowcase sticks to the stubble on his face like Velcro during the night. I've yet to see any actual evidence of this though, LOL.

Vege Tableau

I started collecting these shelf-sitter figurines a couple of years ago. They are available in both fruit and vegetable varieties, but I decided to go with vegetables. There are many different ones to choose from - cauliflowers, carrots, corn, peas in pods, chillies, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, garlic, potatoes... any vegetable you can think of, there is probably a figurine of it in the range.

For ages I just had the broccoli and the eggplant, co-existing happily on my kitchen window sill, above my sink. To me, it always seemed like the broccoli had been telling a joke or having a good gossip and the eggplant was leaning in to share the secret. Last year I bought the orange pumpkin, because, with a grin like that, he looked as if he belonged with the other two gossipers.

For Mothers' Day this year I received another to add to my set. I picked out the butternut pumpkin (...or maybe he's a marrow, I'm not quite sure) purely because of the cranky expression on his face and his folded arms. I knew he would be perfect to play the role of the "outsider", so I've placed him off to one side. I can't quite decide whether he's pissed off because the other three are gossiping and laughing about him, or just because they aren't sharing their secret with him.

What do you think?

100 Not Out !

My Grandma (on my mother's side) turned 100 on the 29th of March, so we had a small family morning tea for her at the nursing home on the Sunday before.

She is quite frail, is bedridden and has almost no vision due to glaucoma and therefore wasn't able to enjoy her own party, but she was awake for most of it.

It wasn't a large turnout, as the family is scattered around the country now, but there were three of her children, eight of her grandchildren and two of her great-grandchildren there to celebrate, and another one of my cousins and his family visited her on her actual birthday the next day.

Here she is on the day, with two of her great-grandchildren, my daughter Cheyenne and my cousin Jodi-May's daughter Gemma.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Longevity seems to run in my family, as my other Gran (my father's mother) lived to be 101, although she was far more sprightly on her 100th birthday.

Back to School

Well, we've survived the first four weeks of Grade 1 without any dramas. Homework and the learning of sight words has commenced, and home readers are now being brought home for reading practice. PE, Library and Music specialty classes have also started, as has Junior Choir practice. Cheyenne has settled into the routine fairly well, and even with the new earlier starts, we've only been a little bit late once. She loves sitting at her brand new desk and pink swivel chair in her bedroom to do her homework. So far, so good.



She was ready early for school on the first day. We found her classroom, met her new teacher Miss Wilton, and looked for her name on the desks to find out which group she was in. She loved being able to put her stationery things into the tidy tray of her desk, as they hadn't had allocated desks in Prep.

Another cause for excitement on the first day of school was that another wobbly tooth fell out. My little Gummy Bear is definitely keeping the tooth fairy in business! The good news is that just this last week, her missing top front tooth has finally made its appearance! (Typically, only AFTER I'd made her an appointment with my dentist, but isn't that just the way life goes, lol?)